THE FOUKE MONSTER: The Southern Sasquatch is best known as the Fouke Monster. The creature's most famous sightings are from the town of Fouke in Miller County, Arkansas. Local legends of an apelike creature date back to 1946, when it was called the "Jonesville Monster" (based on the town where it was initially sighted). Sighted again in the mid-1960's, the creature didn't make local headlines until 1971 when it was said to have attacked the home of Bobby and Elizabeth Ford. The incident inspired a 1973 film called The Legend of Boggy Creek, which in turn inspired additional sightings up through the late 1990's.

LARGE AND APELIKE: The Southern Sasquatch is described as a giant, human-like ape creature with long arms, long, dark hair, three toes on each foot and bright red eyes the size of silver dollars. It's said to walk with a shuffling gait and run in a hunched or slouched posture while swinging its arms, like a primate. Original reports from the 1970's describe the creature as 7 feet tall, up to 300 pounds and a chest about 3 feet wide. The creature's alleged footprints are said to measure 17 inches long and 7 inches wide.

EVIDENCE AND THEORY: Is there an apelike creature roaming the bogs and creeks of Arkansas? The physical evidence -- tracks and claw marks -- doesn't add up to much. Local scientists claim it's 99 percent possible that the creature's alleged footprints are fake; for instance, if the creature was related to an ape, it would have five toes instead of three. If a giant, undiscovered apelike creature in fact roamed North America, it most likely would be a descendent of Gigantopithecus, a 9-foot ape that lived in China as recently as 300,000 years ago. The theory is that it could have survived longer than the fossil record indicates, crossng the Bering Land Bridge with humans during the last Ice Age.